Birthday Brownie Stack!

September is always a busy month for me, with it being my Dad's, Sister's, and friend's birthdays within a little over a week of each other. What better excuse then to get some baking in!

I like to think I've made it clear by now that I love cake... but for this birthday celebration I decided to do something a little different. Whilst decorating a big cake is fun and a great opportunity to get creative, it can take me most of an afternoon to settle on a design, bake the cake, ice it and decorate. I don't begrudge this at all, but with my current job, job hunting, and fitting in exercise and other hobbies too I was struggling to find a whole afternoon to dedicate to this bake. A brownie stack felt like the perfect way to experiment with presentation whilst managing to pack in some tasty flavour combinations. I was able to bake the different components in stages over a few days, which really helped with my time management.

The Brownie Stack!

Now, if truth be told I had no idea that brownie stacks were "in" at the minute (and if I'm honest I'm not sure if they're popular enough for them to be consider a trend or not). I was inspired to bake this on a random night at work when a table brought in a pile of brownies in lieu of a birthday cake. A quick google search after seeing this stack made it clear that plenty of these stacks were being sold on Etsy, so they must be at least a little popular, right? Inspiration can come from the silliest of places, but there we go.

The first step here was to bake the brownies. I followed the recipe for Chocolate Orange Brownies from the Jane's Patisserie book. I really was torn between making chocolate orange brownies or using mint chocolate, however I've made these chocolate orange brownies before and they have such an intense orange flavour that I just couldn't resist. Chocolate orange is my favourite flavour after all! 

By using a combination of melted chocolate orange and folding chopped chocolate orange through the batter, the resulting brownies have this wonderfully indulgent flavour! They also have an amazing fudgey texture, which for me is an absolute win. I know some people prefer cakey brownies, but for me the fudgier the better!

Next came the Bakewell Tart Blondies, another recipe courtesy of Jane's Patisserie! When I first bought this book and saw the recipe I knew I had to try it. Bakewell Tart is one of my dad's favourite puddings, and almond is another favourite flavour of mine. This stack really was shaping up to be a combination of our favourite flavours. These blondies were very simple to make, and using ground almonds and almond extract in the blondie mixture really elevated the taste. When spooned into the baking tin, raspberry jam (or any flavour you like, Jane also recommends cherry jam, which I'd love to try one day) is swirled on top to complete the bakewell look!

The stack takes form: Chocolate Orange 
Brownies and Bakewell Blondies!

So moist, so fudgy!

It took my some time to decide on the best way to decorate the outside of the stack. I knew from the start that I wanted to use cupcakes on this stack, mainly for the colour provided by the buttercream., so I turned to Mary Berry's Baking Bible for her winning cupcake recipe! I also had some nice brown and gold cupcake cases spare from a bake last year, which I thought would compliment the colours of the brownies and brownies. However, when it came to assembling the stack, the cupcakes were too big in their cases to rest on any "outcrops" created by the bigger brownie slices. Removing the cupcakes from the cases and gently cutting them in half solved this problem.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate 
and Vanilla Buttercream: A perfect 
opportunity to practice some piping!

Admittedly, I did kind of wing the decoration of the stack. I raided Aldi's chocolate aisle and came out with some caramel buttons, kinder chocolate bars, and also used leftover chocolate orange and chocolate coated strawberries. A white chocolate drizzle finished off the stack!

I'd decided to make the brownies and blondies different sizes purely for some variation in appearance of the stack. However, if I were to make this kind of stack again I think some consistency in the shapes would look better. It would also make it easier to create outcrops, were chocolates or fruits could be balanced for a more striking appearance.

Angles are important!

I like to think the colours in this stack
compliment each other very well!

I had so much fun with this bake! Although the recipes were not my own it felt really refreshing to come up with a concept and see it through to the finished design. Packing all of these flavours into something that turned out so well (honestly my photography skills do not do this stack justice it looked brilliant-if I do say so myself!) was a great feeling. It also tasted fantastic (as verified by my many taste testers!).

The only downside, for the majority of that weekend I probably ate my body weight in brownie, and didn't half feel sluggish come Monday morning (worth it!).

Gibby x/